


In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thine eyes?

by a_walking_shadow



Series: burning bright [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dr Nyarlathotep, Episode: s01e01 Rose, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 05:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18336800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_walking_shadow/pseuds/a_walking_shadow
Summary: One evening in 2005, Rose Tyler met an eldritch being. Oh, and some animated plastic.





	In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thine eyes?

**Author's Note:**

> The titles is from "The Tyger" by William Blake. Surprise! It's me, stealing titles from poetry again! Will I ever stop? 
> 
> ... yeah, probably not.

‘Right, I've got the joke. Who's idea was this? Is it Derek's? Is it? Derek, is this you?’

Somehow, she knows it isn’t. And not just because Derek would have called it off as soon as she said his name. There’s something in the way the shop dummies move that screams inhumanity, a jerkiness which even the best dancers couldn’t hope to imitate. Joints bending in the wrong places. Blank expressions and sightless eyes which nevertheless navigate around every obstacle in their way.

Rose is nineteen years old, fearless, untouchable, and absolutely and utterly certain that she is about to die at the hands of a bunch of mannequins.  

One of them raises its arm, and- and then, just before it does whatever it’s going to do, her mind is overpowered with silence.

(She thought, then- well, later, but still *then*, before she realised what she was truly dealing with-that it was her mind playing tricks on her, that the deafening silence of nothing but her heartsbeat was her mind preparing for what was going to come next. Then she started getting into life threatening scrapes on a daily basis, and it didn’t happen all that often. Then she remembered she only had one heart, and then she found out that he had two and, well. Started to wonder.)

Something grabs her hand, and it takes a moment too long for her brain to draw together all the different pieces of information and conclude that yes, really, that is a completely normal hand which is attached to a completely normal body and not in any way inhuman. Before it does, though, there is a voice, but it is not a voice. It is the endless silence of empty space which was not empty a moment before, and smoke clinging to the back of her throat once the fire has died, and rust and charcoal crumbling under her fingertips. The shattered remnants which always remain after the destruction, no matter how thorough.

‘Run,’ orders the voice made of ashes.

She’s imagining things, of course. The man pulling her along is just that- a man, wearing a leather jacket, running down a corridor.

She glances over her shoulder at the figures, but their gait is wrong for students, so she decides to focus on the more reasonable part of this situation, which is that some random guy has grabbed her hand and they’re running down a corridor together away from what is certainly an out of control prank.

(she definitely does not focus on the feel of his skin between her fingers, and the way her first thought was charcoal. She does not think about how terrified she is to let go, not because she’s scared but because she thinks he’s going to crumble into dust the moment she releases her grip.)

 

It’s all happening too quickly. Later, she’ll think it might be deliberate- that by moving so fast he stops people from really looking. (Much later, he’ll be someone else entirely and she’ll be even more certain of that.) Use the chaos to pass unnoticed because no one notices the little things when the world’s about to explode.  
(Except when she does.)

It was just one thing after another. Arm. Wilson. Roof. Bomb. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Not enough time to process. Not enough time to understand, only to react. She’s seven years old again and on the gymnastics team, tumbling across the floor, the world spinning too fast to think about what she’s doing, just trust her instincts.  
Right now, her instincts are telling her to stay away from this man, and she curses her curiosity for leaving her standing there after the whirlwind has passed.

The door opens again, accompanied this time by a thrum of manic energy which leaves her breathless.    
‘I’m the Doctor, by the way. What’s your name?’ The shadows curl away from him, sheepishly, if shadows can move sheepishly. Like they want to make it clear that this social faux pas has nothing to do with them.

‘Rose.’

‘Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!’

 

* * *

 

‘Right then, I’ll be off, unless, er, I don’t know, you could come with me…’

She vaguely hears Mickey’s protestations. _He’s an alien_. Yes, I know, she thinks, but does not say. It would be impossible not to know, can you not see the coals burning, his shadows- multiple- thrown into stark relief? Hear the wind whistling over wastelands? Feel the cold seeping into the ground, even from here, as he stutters and dies and stutters back to life? He is an apocalypse on two legs, a catastrophe condensed into the approximate shape of a man.

But there- there, in the centre, in the pause between his words, in the offer he makes her, there is a spark of life, of hope, a promise of wanderlust and starlight, of lives yet to be lived.

She says no. Turns away, closes the cupboard door, moves back from the rabbit-hole, decides to be the grown-up girl she’s supposed to be.

‘By the way, did I mention it also travels in time?’

The shadows stay in the shape of a man, quivering, hopeful. Smoke fills her nostrils, again, but this time it isn’t the acrid stench of burning plastic but the gentle brush of woodsmoke. The wind is playful and adventurous and _free_ and everything which her life on the Powell Estate is not.

His words promise time. Everything else promises home.

She hesitates, and the warmth flickers, almost like the concept itself is scared of her rejection. Like her words might actually matter.

She says yes.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is apparently the first thing I've actually gotten around to writing for the Dr Nyarlathotep fandom (who are all lovely people with incredibly twisted minds and I want to be friends with ALL OF YOU.) I'm not sure it turned out exactly how I planned, but whatever. Hopefully you enjoyed it!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [From the Egg](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18968821) by [Kuroshi44](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuroshi44/pseuds/Kuroshi44)




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